This version is still in development and is not considered stable yet. For the latest stable version, please use Spring Security 6.3.3! |
Authentication Persistence and Session Management
Once you have got an application that is authenticating requests, it is important to consider how that resulting authentication will be persisted and restored on future requests.
This is done automatically by default, so no additional code is necessary, though it is important to know what requireExplicitSave
means in HttpSecurity
.
If you like, you can read more about what requireExplicitSave is doing or why it’s important. Otherwise, in most cases you are done with this section.
But before you leave, consider if any of these use cases fit your application:
-
I want to restrict the number of times a user can be logged in concurrently
-
I want to store the authentication directly myself instead of Spring Security doing it for me
-
I am storing the authentication manually and I want to remove it
-
I am using
SessionManagementFilter
and I need guidance on moving away from that -
I want to store the authentication in something other than the session
-
I am using a stateless authentication, but I’d still like to store it in the session
-
I am using
SessionCreationPolicy.NEVER
but the application is still creating sessions.
Understanding Session Management’s Components
The Session Management support is composed of a few components that work together to provide the functionality.
Those components are, the SecurityContextHolderFilter
, the SecurityContextPersistenceFilter
and the SessionManagementFilter
.
In Spring Security 6, the |
The SessionManagementFilter
The SessionManagementFilter
checks the contents of the SecurityContextRepository
against the current contents of the SecurityContextHolder
to determine whether a user has been authenticated during the current request, typically by a non-interactive authentication mechanism, such as pre-authentication or remember-me [1].
If the repository contains a security context, the filter does nothing.
If it doesn’t, and the thread-local SecurityContext
contains a (non-anonymous) Authentication
object, the filter assumes they have been authenticated by a previous filter in the stack.
It will then invoke the configured SessionAuthenticationStrategy
.
If the user is not currently authenticated, the filter will check whether an invalid session ID has been requested (because of a timeout, for example) and will invoke the configured InvalidSessionStrategy
, if one is set.
The most common behaviour is just to redirect to a fixed URL and this is encapsulated in the standard implementation SimpleRedirectInvalidSessionStrategy
.
The latter is also used when configuring an invalid session URL through the namespace, as described earlier.
Moving Away From SessionManagementFilter
In Spring Security 5, the default configuration relies on SessionManagementFilter
to detect if a user just authenticated and invoke the SessionAuthenticationStrategy
.
The problem with this is that it means that in a typical setup, the HttpSession
must be read for every request.
In Spring Security 6, the default is that authentication mechanisms themselves must invoke the SessionAuthenticationStrategy
.
This means that there is no need to detect when Authentication
is done and thus the HttpSession
does not need to be read for every request.
Things To Consider When Moving Away From SessionManagementFilter
In Spring Security 6, the SessionManagementFilter
is not used by default, therefore, some methods from the sessionManagement
DSL will not have any effect.
Method | Replacement |
---|---|
|
Configure an |
|
Configure an |
|
Configure an |
If you try to use any of these methods, an exception will be thrown.
Customizing Where the Authentication Is Stored
By default, Spring Security stores the security context for you in the HTTP session. However, here are several reasons you may want to customize that:
-
You may want call individual setters on the
HttpSessionSecurityContextRepository
instance -
You may want to store the security context in a cache or database to enable horizontal scaling
First, you need to create an implementation of SecurityContextRepository
or use an existing implementation like HttpSessionSecurityContextRepository
, then you can set it in HttpSecurity
.
SecurityContextRepository
-
Java
-
Kotlin
-
XML
@Bean
public SecurityFilterChain filterChain(HttpSecurity http) {
SecurityContextRepository repo = new MyCustomSecurityContextRepository();
http
// ...
.securityContext((context) -> context
.securityContextRepository(repo)
);
return http.build();
}
@Bean
open fun filterChain(http: HttpSecurity): SecurityFilterChain {
val repo = MyCustomSecurityContextRepository()
http {
// ...
securityContext {
securityContextRepository = repo
}
}
return http.build()
}
<http security-context-repository-ref="repo">
<!-- ... -->
</http>
<bean name="repo" class="com.example.MyCustomSecurityContextRepository" />
The above configuration sets the |
If you are using a custom authentication mechanism, you might want to store the Authentication
by yourself.
Storing the Authentication
manually
In some cases, for example, you might be authenticating a user manually instead of relying on Spring Security filters.
You can use a custom filters or a Spring MVC controller endpoint to do that.
If you want to save the authentication between requests, in the HttpSession
, for example, you have to do so:
-
Java
private SecurityContextRepository securityContextRepository =
new HttpSessionSecurityContextRepository(); (1)
@PostMapping("/login")
public void login(@RequestBody LoginRequest loginRequest, HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) { (2)
UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken token = UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken.unauthenticated(
loginRequest.getUsername(), loginRequest.getPassword()); (3)
Authentication authentication = authenticationManager.authenticate(token); (4)
SecurityContext context = securityContextHolderStrategy.createEmptyContext();
context.setAuthentication(authentication); (5)
securityContextHolderStrategy.setContext(context);
securityContextRepository.saveContext(context, request, response); (6)
}
class LoginRequest {
private String username;
private String password;
// getters and setters
}
1 | Add the SecurityContextRepository to the controller |
2 | Inject the HttpServletRequest and HttpServletResponse to be able to save the SecurityContext |
3 | Create an unauthenticated UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken using the provided credentials |
4 | Call AuthenticationManager#authenticate to authenticate the user |
5 | Create a SecurityContext and set the Authentication in it |
6 | Save the SecurityContext in the SecurityContextRepository |
And that’s it.
If you are not sure what securityContextHolderStrategy
is in the above example, you can read more about it in the Using SecurityContextStrategy
section.
Properly Clearing an Authentication
If you are using Spring Security’s Logout Support then it handles a lot of stuff for you including clearing and saving the context. But, let’s say you need to manually log users out of your app. In that case, you’ll need to make sure you’re clearing and saving the context properly.
Configuring Persistence for Stateless Authentication
Sometimes there is no need to create and maintain a HttpSession
for example, to persist the authentication across requests.
Some authentication mechanisms like HTTP Basic are stateless and, therefore, re-authenticates the user on every request.
If you do not wish to create sessions, you can use SessionCreationPolicy.STATELESS
, like so:
-
Java
-
Kotlin
-
XML
@Bean
public SecurityFilterChain filterChain(HttpSecurity http) {
http
// ...
.sessionManagement((session) -> session
.sessionCreationPolicy(SessionCreationPolicy.STATELESS)
);
return http.build();
}
@Bean
open fun filterChain(http: HttpSecurity): SecurityFilterChain {
http {
// ...
sessionManagement {
sessionCreationPolicy = SessionCreationPolicy.STATELESS
}
}
return http.build()
}
<http create-session="stateless">
<!-- ... -->
</http>
The above configuration is configuring the SecurityContextRepository
to use a NullSecurityContextRepository
and is also preventing the request from being saved in the session.
If you are using SessionCreationPolicy.NEVER
, you might notice that the application is still creating a HttpSession
.
In most cases, this happens because the request is saved in the session for the authenticated resource to re-request after authentication is successful.
To avoid that, please refer to how to prevent the request of being saved section.
Storing Stateless Authentication in the Session
If, for some reason, you are using a stateless authentication mechanism, but you still want to store the authentication in the session you can use the HttpSessionSecurityContextRepository
instead of the NullSecurityContextRepository
.
For the HTTP Basic, you can add a ObjectPostProcessor
that changes the SecurityContextRepository
used by the BasicAuthenticationFilter
:
HttpSession
-
Java
@Bean
SecurityFilterChain web(HttpSecurity http) throws Exception {
http
// ...
.httpBasic((basic) -> basic
.addObjectPostProcessor(new ObjectPostProcessor<BasicAuthenticationFilter>() {
@Override
public <O extends BasicAuthenticationFilter> O postProcess(O filter) {
filter.setSecurityContextRepository(new HttpSessionSecurityContextRepository());
return filter;
}
})
);
return http.build();
}
The above also applies to others authentication mechanisms, like Bearer Token Authentication.
Understanding Require Explicit Save
In Spring Security 5, the default behavior is for the SecurityContext
to automatically be saved to the SecurityContextRepository
using the SecurityContextPersistenceFilter
.
Saving must be done just prior to the HttpServletResponse
being committed and just before SecurityContextPersistenceFilter
.
Unfortunately, automatic persistence of the SecurityContext
can surprise users when it is done prior to the request completing (i.e. just prior to committing the HttpServletResponse
).
It also is complex to keep track of the state to determine if a save is necessary causing unnecessary writes to the SecurityContextRepository
(i.e. HttpSession
) at times.
For these reasons, the SecurityContextPersistenceFilter
has been deprecated to be replaced with the SecurityContextHolderFilter
.
In Spring Security 6, the default behavior is that the SecurityContextHolderFilter
will only read the SecurityContext
from SecurityContextRepository
and populate it in the SecurityContextHolder
.
Users now must explicitly save the SecurityContext
with the SecurityContextRepository
if they want the SecurityContext
to persist between requests.
This removes ambiguity and improves performance by only requiring writing to the SecurityContextRepository
(i.e. HttpSession
) when it is necessary.
How it works
In summary, when requireExplicitSave
is true
, Spring Security sets up the SecurityContextHolderFilter
instead of the SecurityContextPersistenceFilter
Configuring Concurrent Session Control
If you wish to place constraints on a single user’s ability to log in to your application, Spring Security supports this out of the box with the following simple additions. First, you need to add the following listener to your configuration to keep Spring Security updated about session lifecycle events:
-
Java
-
Kotlin
-
web.xml
@Bean
public HttpSessionEventPublisher httpSessionEventPublisher() {
return new HttpSessionEventPublisher();
}
@Bean
open fun httpSessionEventPublisher(): HttpSessionEventPublisher {
return HttpSessionEventPublisher()
}
<listener>
<listener-class>
org.springframework.security.web.session.HttpSessionEventPublisher
</listener-class>
</listener>
Then add the following lines to your security configuration:
-
Java
-
Kotlin
-
XML
@Bean
public SecurityFilterChain filterChain(HttpSecurity http) {
http
.sessionManagement(session -> session
.maximumSessions(1)
);
return http.build();
}
@Bean
open fun filterChain(http: HttpSecurity): SecurityFilterChain {
http {
sessionManagement {
sessionConcurrency {
maximumSessions = 1
}
}
}
return http.build()
}
<http>
...
<session-management>
<concurrency-control max-sessions="1" />
</session-management>
</http>
This will prevent a user from logging in multiple times - a second login will cause the first to be invalidated.
Using Spring Boot, you can test the above configuration scenario the following way:
-
Java
@SpringBootTest(webEnvironment = SpringBootTest.WebEnvironment.RANDOM_PORT)
@AutoConfigureMockMvc
public class MaximumSessionsTests {
@Autowired
private MockMvc mvc;
@Test
void loginOnSecondLoginThenFirstSessionTerminated() throws Exception {
MvcResult mvcResult = this.mvc.perform(formLogin())
.andExpect(authenticated())
.andReturn();
MockHttpSession firstLoginSession = (MockHttpSession) mvcResult.getRequest().getSession();
this.mvc.perform(get("/").session(firstLoginSession))
.andExpect(authenticated());
this.mvc.perform(formLogin()).andExpect(authenticated());
// first session is terminated by second login
this.mvc.perform(get("/").session(firstLoginSession))
.andExpect(unauthenticated());
}
}
You can try it using the Maximum Sessions sample.
It is also common that you would prefer to prevent a second login, in which case you can use:
-
Java
-
Kotlin
-
XML
@Bean
public SecurityFilterChain filterChain(HttpSecurity http) {
http
.sessionManagement(session -> session
.maximumSessions(1)
.maxSessionsPreventsLogin(true)
);
return http.build();
}
@Bean
open fun filterChain(http: HttpSecurity): SecurityFilterChain {
http {
sessionManagement {
sessionConcurrency {
maximumSessions = 1
maxSessionsPreventsLogin = true
}
}
}
return http.build()
}
<http>
<session-management>
<concurrency-control max-sessions="1" error-if-maximum-exceeded="true" />
</session-management>
</http>
The second login will then be rejected.
By "rejected", we mean that the user will be sent to the authentication-failure-url
if form-based login is being used.
If the second authentication takes place through another non-interactive mechanism, such as "remember-me", an "unauthorized" (401) error will be sent to the client.
If instead you want to use an error page, you can add the attribute session-authentication-error-url
to the session-management
element.
Using Spring Boot, you can test the above configuration the following way:
-
Java
@SpringBootTest(webEnvironment = SpringBootTest.WebEnvironment.RANDOM_PORT)
@AutoConfigureMockMvc
public class MaximumSessionsPreventLoginTests {
@Autowired
private MockMvc mvc;
@Test
void loginOnSecondLoginThenPreventLogin() throws Exception {
MvcResult mvcResult = this.mvc.perform(formLogin())
.andExpect(authenticated())
.andReturn();
MockHttpSession firstLoginSession = (MockHttpSession) mvcResult.getRequest().getSession();
this.mvc.perform(get("/").session(firstLoginSession))
.andExpect(authenticated());
// second login is prevented
this.mvc.perform(formLogin()).andExpect(unauthenticated());
// first session is still valid
this.mvc.perform(get("/").session(firstLoginSession))
.andExpect(authenticated());
}
}
If you are using a customized authentication filter for form-based login, then you have to configure concurrent session control support explicitly. You can try it using the Maximum Sessions Prevent Login sample.
Detecting Timeouts
Sessions expire on their own, and there is nothing that needs to be done to ensure that a security context gets removed.
That said, Spring Security can detect when a session has expired and take specific actions that you indicate.
For example, you may want to redirect to a specific endpoint when a user makes a request with an already-expired session.
This is achieved through the invalidSessionUrl
in HttpSecurity
:
-
Java
-
Kotlin
-
XML
@Bean
public SecurityFilterChain filterChain(HttpSecurity http) {
http
.sessionManagement(session -> session
.invalidSessionUrl("/invalidSession")
);
return http.build();
}
@Bean
open fun filterChain(http: HttpSecurity): SecurityFilterChain {
http {
sessionManagement {
invalidSessionUrl = "/invalidSession"
}
}
return http.build()
}
<http>
...
<session-management invalid-session-url="/invalidSession" />
</http>
Note that if you use this mechanism to detect session timeouts, it may falsely report an error if the user logs out and then logs back in without closing the browser. This is because the session cookie is not cleared when you invalidate the session and will be resubmitted even if the user has logged out. If that is your case, you might want to configure logout to clear the session cookie.
Customizing the Invalid Session Strategy
The invalidSessionUrl
is a convenience method for setting the InvalidSessionStrategy
using the SimpleRedirectInvalidSessionStrategy
implementation.
If you want to customize the behavior, you can implement the InvalidSessionStrategy
interface and configure it using the invalidSessionStrategy
method:
-
Java
-
Kotlin
-
XML
@Bean
public SecurityFilterChain filterChain(HttpSecurity http) {
http
.sessionManagement(session -> session
.invalidSessionStrategy(new MyCustomInvalidSessionStrategy())
);
return http.build();
}
@Bean
open fun filterChain(http: HttpSecurity): SecurityFilterChain {
http {
sessionManagement {
invalidSessionStrategy = MyCustomInvalidSessionStrategy()
}
}
return http.build()
}
<http>
...
<session-management invalid-session-strategy-ref="myCustomInvalidSessionStrategy" />
<bean name="myCustomInvalidSessionStrategy" class="com.example.MyCustomInvalidSessionStrategy" />
</http>
Clearing Session Cookies on Logout
You can explicitly delete the JSESSIONID cookie on logging out, for example by using the Clear-Site-Data
header in the logout handler:
-
Java
-
Kotlin
-
XML
@Bean
public SecurityFilterChain filterChain(HttpSecurity http) {
http
.logout((logout) -> logout
.addLogoutHandler(new HeaderWriterLogoutHandler(new ClearSiteDataHeaderWriter(COOKIES)))
);
return http.build();
}
@Bean
open fun filterChain(http: HttpSecurity): SecurityFilterChain {
http {
logout {
addLogoutHandler(HeaderWriterLogoutHandler(ClearSiteDataHeaderWriter(COOKIES)))
}
}
return http.build()
}
<http>
<logout success-handler-ref="clearSiteDataHandler" />
<b:bean id="clearSiteDataHandler" class="org.springframework.security.web.authentication.logout.HeaderWriterLogoutHandler">
<b:constructor-arg>
<b:bean class="org.springframework.security.web.header.writers.ClearSiteDataHeaderWriter">
<b:constructor-arg>
<b:list>
<b:value>COOKIES</b:value>
</b:list>
</b:constructor-arg>
</b:bean>
</b:constructor-arg>
</b:bean>
</http>
This has the advantage of being container agnostic and will work with any container that supports the Clear-Site-Data
header.
As an alternative, you can also use the following syntax in the logout handler:
-
Java
-
Kotlin
-
XML
@Bean
public SecurityFilterChain filterChain(HttpSecurity http) {
http
.logout(logout -> logout
.deleteCookies("JSESSIONID")
);
return http.build();
}
@Bean
open fun filterChain(http: HttpSecurity): SecurityFilterChain {
http {
logout {
deleteCookies("JSESSIONID")
}
}
return http.build()
}
<http>
<logout delete-cookies="JSESSIONID" />
</http>
Unfortunately, this cannot be guaranteed to work with every servlet container, so you need to test it in your environment.
If you run your application behind a proxy, you may also be able to remove the session cookie by configuring the proxy server.
For example, by using Apache HTTPD’s |
<LocationMatch "/tutorial/logout">
Header always set Set-Cookie "JSESSIONID=;Path=/tutorial;Expires=Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT"
</LocationMatch>
More details on the Clear Site Data and Logout sections.
Understanding Session Fixation Attack Protection
Session fixation attacks are a potential risk where it is possible for a malicious attacker to create a session by accessing a site, then persuade another user to log in with the same session (by sending them a link containing the session identifier as a parameter, for example). Spring Security protects against this automatically by creating a new session or otherwise changing the session ID when a user logs in.
Configuring Session Fixation Protection
You can control the strategy for Session Fixation Protection by choosing between three recommended options:
-
changeSessionId
- Do not create a new session. Instead, use the session fixation protection provided by the Servlet container (HttpServletRequest#changeSessionId()
). This option is only available in Servlet 3.1 (Java EE 7) and newer containers. Specifying it in older containers will result in an exception. This is the default in Servlet 3.1 and newer containers. -
newSession
- Create a new "clean" session, without copying the existing session data (Spring Security-related attributes will still be copied). -
migrateSession
- Create a new session and copy all existing session attributes to the new session. This is the default in Servlet 3.0 or older containers.
You can configure the session fixation protection by doing:
-
Java
-
Kotlin
-
XML
@Bean
public SecurityFilterChain filterChain(HttpSecurity http) {
http
.sessionManagement((session) -> session
.sessionFixation((sessionFixation) -> sessionFixation
.newSession()
)
);
return http.build();
}
@Bean
open fun filterChain(http: HttpSecurity): SecurityFilterChain {
http {
sessionManagement {
sessionFixation {
newSession()
}
}
}
return http.build()
}
<http>
<session-management session-fixation-protection="newSession" />
</http>
When session fixation protection occurs, it results in a SessionFixationProtectionEvent
being published in the application context.
If you use changeSessionId
, this protection will also result in any jakarta.servlet.http.HttpSessionIdListener
s being notified, so use caution if your code listens for both events.
You can also set the session fixation protection to none
to disable it, but this is not recommended as it leaves your application vulnerable.
Using SecurityContextHolderStrategy
Consider the following block of code:
-
Java
UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken token = new UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken(
loginRequest.getUsername(), loginRequest.getPassword());
Authentication authentication = this.authenticationManager.authenticate(token);
// ...
SecurityContext context = SecurityContextHolder.createEmptyContext(); (1)
context.setAuthentication(authentication); (2)
SecurityContextHolder.setContext(context); (3)
-
Creates an empty
SecurityContext
instance by accessing theSecurityContextHolder
statically. -
Sets the
Authentication
object in theSecurityContext
instance. -
Sets the
SecurityContext
instance in theSecurityContextHolder
statically.
While the above code works fine, it can produce some undesired effects: when components access the SecurityContext
statically through SecurityContextHolder
, this can create race conditions when there are multiple application contexts that want to specify the SecurityContextHolderStrategy
.
This is because in SecurityContextHolder
there is one strategy per classloader instead of one per application context.
To address this, components can wire SecurityContextHolderStrategy
from the application context.
By default, they will still look up the strategy from SecurityContextHolder
.
These changes are largely internal, but they present the opportunity for applications to autowire the SecurityContextHolderStrategy
instead of accessing the SecurityContext
statically.
To do so, you should change the code to the following:
-
Java
public class SomeClass {
private final SecurityContextHolderStrategy securityContextHolderStrategy = SecurityContextHolder.getContextHolderStrategy();
public void someMethod() {
UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken token = UsernamePasswordAuthenticationToken.unauthenticated(
loginRequest.getUsername(), loginRequest.getPassword());
Authentication authentication = this.authenticationManager.authenticate(token);
// ...
SecurityContext context = this.securityContextHolderStrategy.createEmptyContext(); (1)
context.setAuthentication(authentication); (2)
this.securityContextHolderStrategy.setContext(context); (3)
}
}
-
Creates an empty
SecurityContext
instance using the configuredSecurityContextHolderStrategy
. -
Sets the
Authentication
object in theSecurityContext
instance. -
Sets the
SecurityContext
instance in theSecurityContextHolderStrategy
.
Forcing Eager Session Creation
At times, it can be valuable to eagerly create sessions.
This can be done by using the ForceEagerSessionCreationFilter
which can be configured using:
-
Java
-
Kotlin
-
XML
@Bean
public SecurityFilterChain filterChain(HttpSecurity http) {
http
.sessionManagement(session -> session
.sessionCreationPolicy(SessionCreationPolicy.ALWAYS)
);
return http.build();
}
@Bean
open fun filterChain(http: HttpSecurity): SecurityFilterChain {
http {
sessionManagement {
sessionCreationPolicy = SessionCreationPolicy.ALWAYS
}
}
return http.build()
}
<http create-session="ALWAYS">
</http>
What to read next
-
Clustered sessions with Spring Session
SessionManagementFilter
, as the filter will not be invoked during the authenticating request. Session-management functionality has to be handled separately in these cases.